Brand personalization implementation methodology: 9 steps, let’s talk about how to implement personalization specifically?

This article is a continuation of the previous article "Brand Tone: Who has the final say in your opinion?" ”, which talks about people’s distrust of institutional brands and their shift to the pursuit of personalized brands. All products should be endorsed by living personalities. Our interest in people far exceeds our interest in objects. We have truly entered the era of “personalized” brands. At the end of the article I said, "The next issue will discuss how to do personalization specifically," so this article was written.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that all brands and products need to be personified. The purpose of personification is to arouse users’ emotions and bring the brand closer to users. Therefore, personalized brands are more suitable when products are highly homogeneous, decisions are simple, and information is not complex, such as beverages, food, clothes, etc. These brands and products often have more emotional appeals than rational appeals. Correspondingly, products with complex information and requiring careful decision-making often require rational appeals, so they may not necessarily need to be personalized.

Back to the topic, we know that there are great brands, public accounts and Weibo accounts like Three Squirrels , Alipay and Haier , and we also know that we need to learn from them and carry out personalized transformation.

So, how do we personalize our brand?

• The first step is to identify brand values ​​and positioning
• The second step is to investigate the consumer’s personality
• Step 3: Understand the image of your competitors
• Step 4: Find the brand gender
• Step 5: Choose a brand archetype
• Step 6: Find the right brand role
• Step 7: Choose your brand personality
• Step 8: Build a content system
• Step 9: Find a physical support

Next, I will try to explain step by step how to personify your brand, from big to small.

Step 1: Brand Values ​​and Positioning

Solving any problem requires starting from the most fundamental point. The importance of brand values ​​and positioning is self-evident. They are the roots of the enterprise and the soul of the product. If you haven’t thought clearly about the values ​​and positioning of your own brand, there is no need to think about anything else.

“What I fear most is the sudden silence in the air, the sudden concern from friends, and the sudden creativity of marketers .” Every marketer has countless “creative” impulses in his or her heart, and wishes that every day the brand advertisement would be different and creative. However, too much creativity may not help your brand. Instead, it may hurt it because you are not repeating your greatest asset and allowing it to increase in value over time. For example, some brands may have a noble and cool personality this year, but become a funny and silly personality next year. As an ordinary consumer, do you understand the values ​​and positioning of this brand?

For branding, as long as you find a direction, persist in it continuously and repeat it constantly, you can become a true " friend of time ". For example, Coca-Cola has always insisted on delivering authenticity, enjoyment and happiness.

When you have truly found the brand’s values ​​and positioning, we can talk about brand personality.

Step 2: Consumer Personality

In addition to understanding yourself, you need to know what kind of people your target consumer group is, what characteristics they have, what they want to express, and what their discourse system and expression logic are. At the same time, you need to know who holds the right to speak among your target consumer groups?

For example, an article that was very popular some time ago, "The naughty kids you hate the most call themselves "Black World" and have already controlled QQ group chats", is about how the post-00s generation has formed an organization called "Black World" in the QQ group, which is full of various terms that only they can understand, such as "kouzi" and "huwo".

If your target consumer group is those born after 2000, do you know how to communicate with them? The clearer your values, discourse, and labels are, the easier it will be for them to identify allies or enemies. Their unique terminology is like the flags and uniforms in war. They need to be labeled so that it is easier and faster to identify the enemy and us in the war and attract supporters with the same values. If your brand can speak their unique language, they will recognize it immediately and think, "Wow, you are one of us." This will shorten the distance and strengthen the goodwill between you.

When consumers buy products, they will subconsciously look for products that are consistent with their personality. Among them, personality consistency may be actual personality consistency or ideal personality consistency. For example, people who value family and safety may choose Volvo cars , which are positioned as "safety", high-end business people may choose Mercedes-Benz cars, which are positioned as "noble enjoyment", and people who are unrestrained and love freedom may choose "Land Rover".

To give another example, "Barbie" is different from other toys. They found that when children play with Barbie, they don't play with it for a companion, but to see their future selves. Children pursue their ideal future selves by constantly dressing up and dressing Barbie. At this time, they are pursuing their ideal personality.

Personalization is equivalent to a label, telling others "who I am" (ideal personality) and telling yourself "who I am" (real personality).

Therefore, you need to think clearly about who your consumers are and what kind of personality you want to provide for them?

Step 3: Competitor Image

With an understanding of the target customers, it is of course necessary to research competitors. Knowing yourself and your enemy will ensure victory in every battle. In many industries, perhaps due to the particularity of the industry, the brand personality and image tend to be similar. For example, in the tea industry, many brand images are centered around the place of origin, such as Anxi Tieguanyin, West Lake Longjing, Yunnan Pu'er, and so on.

In this case, would it be more attractive to users if we established a different brand personality and image? Just like "Xiaoguan Tea", their brand personality and image emphasize 8 tea-making masters, using the image of tea-making masters to distinguish it from the original image of the origin of traditional tea.

To give another example, Nike and adidas almost always choose a small group of the top people in the sports field as their spokespeople, such as James and Messi. They have extraordinary talents, strong bodies, and a domineering temperament.

However, the American sports brand UA chose Curry (my idol!) as its spokesperson. What is Curry’s personality and image? He was thin, short, and despised. He came from the ordinary world and walked an ordinary path, but he wrote an extraordinary life with ordinary stories. He changed the dominance of muscles over basketball, he changed the sport of basketball with three-pointers, and still holds a three-point record that no one else can match. Ordinary people can find resonance and hope through his life experience, just as Jack Ma ’s experience has inspired many people. Thanks to Curry's personality, UA once surpassed adidas and became the second largest sports brand in the United States after Nike.

This does not mean that if our competitor has an "A" personality, then we must become a "non-A" personality. The final choice still comes back to the previous two questions: your brand values, positioning, and your target consumer group.

Sometimes your competitors may not be people in the same industry, but rather people who meet the same needs of consumers, especially when it comes to new things. For example, Inwei Tea’s competitor may not be Heytea or Yidiandian, but Starbucks ; PepsiCo ’s competitor may not be Coca-Cola, but other beverages.

Step 4: Brand Gender

Once we have thought clearly about the brand’s values, positioning, target consumer groups and competitors, we move on to a more detailed step.

If a brand wants to be transformed into a person, then it must have the most basic judgment as a person: is it a man, a woman, or a neutral person? Sex is the most primitive impulse of human beings.

Try to imagine if your brand is masculine, feminine or unisex? Only after knowing your gender can you know how to dress yourself, whether to have long hair or short hair, whether to wear lipstick or not.

Generally speaking, home appliances, digital products, outdoor products, and automobiles tend to be more "masculine", often with a cool, powerful, wise, and non-conformist personality. Correspondingly, daily consumer goods and lifestyle products tend to be more "feminine", often with a sexy, warm and delicate personality. Products such as education and training, and corporate services tend to have a more "neutral" personality.

It doesn’t mean that if you are an outdoor product you must be “masculine”. You can also make a contrasting change as mentioned in the “competitors” section, and maybe it will have a different flavor.

The gender of your brand must be consistent with your brand’s values ​​and positioning. Don’t allow a brand that is positioned as a macho image to say pretentious things every day. At the same time, the male personality can be gentler and the female personality can be tougher, but it is best not to switch between them frequently, being a male one day and a female the next.

To be continued

Due to space limitations, the remaining five parts: selection of brand archetype, positioning of brand role, selection of brand personality, content construction, and physical sustenance, will be explained one by one in the next article.

Friends who are interested, please continue to pay attention, thank you!

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